Commercial truck fleets have consistent problems with vehicle maintenance while on the road. Even optimal maintenance between trips cannot eliminate the possibility of mechanical problems when distant from a local repair source. For that reason, national roadside repair services exist and contract with fleets to repair vehicles wherever they break down. In some cases, a repair service is specific to certain features of the vehicle which are relatively straightforward to replace, such as a tire repair service.
Accessing a roadside repair service typically involves calling a number, identifying yourself and your customer information, and accurately reporting your location. The repair service may reference your location against a list of available service professionals, which may be employed directly by the company providing the service or may work independently through a network service agreement as known in the art.
A roadside repair service request as reported by a conventional phone-in process relies heavily on the knowledge of the vehicle operator, who is expected to be able to provide account information and detailed knowledge of his location.
However, in practice, the vehicle operator may not have detailed knowledge of his location. Conveying a vehicle over hundreds or thousands of miles of road, the driver may not be aware of his current city or state, much less the specifics of his truck's position. Finding the location of the vehicle to be serviced may, under certain circumstances, require significant time and effort on the part of the dispatcher handling the call as well as the service technician sent to repair the vehicle. Numerous calls to the customer may be necessary from both service employees, with requiring additional time and frustrating customer.
In addition, the conventional phone-in process may convey only very limited information to the customer—only that information given over the phone by the dispatcher, who may quickly become unavailable on other calls and may be difficult to contact again.
Therefore, a roadside repair service request system is needed that can provide additional information to both the service employees and the customer; that minimizes or eliminates the need for phone contact between the employees and the customer; and that does not rely as heavily on the customer's knowledge of his vehicle's location.